Sports writer for The Age

Essendon legend Tim Watson said he still had some doubt about whether James Hird would coach the Bombers after his 12-month suspension had expired in September, although his understanding was that he would.

"I have spoken to enough people today for there to be doubt about that," Watson said about Hird's future when asked on Channel Seven's Talking Footy on Monday night.

Watson's comments came in relation to an announcement from Essendon on Monday night that the club's board would meet to discuss James Hird's future at the club following a tumultuous few days in the wake of his wife Tania's controversial interview on the ABC's 7.30 report on Thursday night.

In a statement on Monday night, the Bombers said: "The club wishes to advise the matter relating to James Hird has been referred to a board meeting on Wednesday. There'll be no further comment."

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Watson, the father of captain Jobe Watson, said he believed the club had bought more time to canvass "all the ramifications" of the decision when they met on Wednesday.

"I don't think anyone should be under any misunderstanding as to how serious the club is taking this," Watson said.

"They want this to go away and they want James, and they want Tania and everyone associated with the 'Hird camp' ... to just accept the umpire's decision and move on with their lives," he said.

"James, of course, has been ... one of the most decorated players that has ever represented the club, too. So a club doesn't take a decision like this lightly."

Hird is contracted to coach the Bombers in 2015 and 2016 when he returns from a 12-month suspension for his role in the supplements saga that has rocked the football world over the past 14 months.

Watson said he was now firmly of the view that part of Hird's accepted penalty from the AFL should have allowed him to speak about his knowledge of the supplements scandal.

"I've never said this before about the whole saga," he said.

"I think they should have let him tell his side of the story, because that is the frustration, the built-up anger that they [the Hird camp] still have within the group, that he was never able to keep his side of the story.

"If you cast your mind back to last year, he kept saying, 'I want to tell people what's happened, I want to give my side of this story.'

"Now, I think Tania did that ... and she sort of unloaded and gave a lot of detail about what had been festering inside over a period of time that they had never been able to articulate.

"It would have been a big story at the time, it would have blown up, but it was a big story anyway. Everyone could have dealt with the components of that story then."